BSS Audio upgrades Europe’s largest convention centre

The Milano Congressi (MiCo) in Italy, has had its second Harman BSS Audio installation in two years. Located in the northern wing of MiCo, this installation was designed and built by Volume Srl and Euphon SpA Group with support from Harman Professional Italian distributor Leading Technologies. It works with the existing BSS Audio network Leading Technologies provided for the south block section of the facility.

Leading Technologies engineer Roberto Frigerio, summarised: “In the spring, the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union decided to bring various international meetings to MiCo. The organisation also wanted to test the waters regarding staging other international corporate events beginning in 2015. Despite our successful installation in the south block two years earlier, we had to prove we could accommodate these new demands and seamlessly integrate the new installation with the existing one – and under severe time and budgetary constraints.”

A major requirement for the project was to standardise operation of the system in any room and accommodate a number of diverse AV sources. “The BSS Audio Soundweb London system takes in the audio inputs from the mixing consoles via Dante and feeds the amplifiers through BLU link,” explained Volume Srl’s project manager Marco Salviati. Users now also have the ability to send AV from one room to all the others, enabling multiple rooms to share the same content, but with individual volume levels.

“For such a complex and flexible installation, it’s really simple to operate,” noted Dick Cranbe, the Audinate consultant on the project. “Every room can be run completely independently, and where rooms are linked together a user can use a single audio mixer to control the volume of all the rooms.”

“The project has lived up to its expectations, which were extremely high,” concluded Frigerio. “Until now, there was no facility in Italy capable of hosting large international meetings, which meant that we lost business to other countries. With the advent of the new BSS Audio system, MiCo is truly in the forefront of the world’s convention centres, and we’ve brought a new level of professionalism and new job opportunities into our domestic market.”